Friday Bits and Pieces

is the ‘lovefest’ finally ending? MO being criticized by Politico according to National Review;

Mrs. Obama’s nonprofit reportedly has assets of $4.5 million. It doesn’t have to disclose its donors. So much for the “most transparent administration ever.” Even left-wing watchdogs are irked. “This is a classic case of the game of influence peddling by lobbying associations,” Craig Holman, who works for the liberal watchdog group Public Citizen, told Politico. “Lobbyists and corporations with business pending before the federal government invest in such charitable causes as a means to buy access [to] and favor from the White House.”

In 2008, candidate Barack Obama preached, “We need a president who will look out for the interests of hardworking families, not just their big campaign donors and corporate allies.” In 2013, first lady Michelle Obama is busy signing up as many corporate allies as she can. [snip]

The alliances between big business and big government, marketed as a public service “for the children,” have been a bonanza for the First Crony. They scratch her back, her clout and popularity increase, and she’ll have a cornucopia of board-of-director slots to choose from after her hubby’s term is up. Make no mistake: Michelle’s fruits and vegetables are served on a heaping platter of progressive hypocrisy.

Remember that incredibly auspicious Cash-for-Clunkers? ” The administration patted itself on the back when the program ran out of money, apparently pleasantly surprised that people took free money during an economic downturn. But Brookings confirms that this was, of course, a terrible program.” Brookings Institution is a very left leaning think tank and has come to the same conclusions we were talking about when that debacle of a ‘stimulus’ program rolled out. While analyzing the program they came up with this, from Legal Insurrection:

Total emissions reduction was not substantial because only about half a percent of all vehicles in the United States were the new, more energy-efficient CARS vehicles.

The program resulted in a small gasoline reduction equivalent only to about 2 to 8 days’ worth of current usage.

In terms of distributional effects, compared to households that purchased a new or used vehicle in 2009 without a voucher, CARS program participants had a higher before-tax income, were older, more likely to be white, more likely to own a home, and more likely to have a high-school and a college degree.

And, on to the Supremes……

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals — the second most powerful court in the country behind the Supreme Court — today released a decision that may well act as the killing blow against ObamaCare.

Two Ohio businessmen, Francis and Phillip Gilardi, the owners of Freshway Foods and Freshway Logistics, sued the Department of Health and Human Services after the passage of the ACA on the grounds that its provisions requiring contraceptive coverage for their employees forced them to act against the tenets of their Catholic faith.

The D.C. court found in the Gilardi’s favor, concluding that, “the contraceptive mandate imposed by the Act trammels the right of free exercise — a right that lies at the core of our constitutional liberties — as protected by the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.”

Wait, whoa. Does anyone remember when it was acceptable to hand out apples, until some killjoy hippy put razors in them, and now children get their candy x-rayed do to LSD tampering? We remember, evidently, she does not.